Is this a good deal...?

[pipspeak]

I have the chance to buy a factory-sealed T43 (unwanted purchase, probably through EPP) model 266876U for $1750... seems to be well below list and street price, and the serial number/warranty checks out on the IBM website.

Is there anything else I need to check or know before buying from a private seller? And is this a good price? It has all the specs I'm looking for and then some (bluetooth and 80GB are nice extras).

[carbon_unit]

Make sure you are protected from fraud such as no item received or received broken. Definitely do not depend on Paypal to protect you. Use a Credit Card or use Bill Morrow as an escrow.

[pipspeak]

It's local, so I'd go open the box, switch the thing on, and check confinguration before handing over any money. How to pay is another matter. Some insurance would be nice but since I'd inspect the machine it's probably unnecessary.

[Vindicated]

A private seller or small ebay company? Obviouslly you checked their feedback, and I assume you're only dealing with people who live in the same country (ideally the same state) as you. After that find out everything you can about why it's being sold, what's included, is it used or new, have they tested the machine, ran any benchmarks? If not, will they be will to? Ask them to run Prime95's stress test for 5 minutes and have them email you the results. See if they'll change the user account name to yours and email you a photo or screenshot.

Expect a private seller to go out of their way and do more, specially if they don't got a huge amount of feedbacks. A eBay small business (power seller) probably won't turn on the laptop or run any programs, their selling unopened & unused.

Escrow is a good idea, but I'd only deal with an Ebay recomended site (such as escrow.com), the fee will $50 to $100 (you'll be expected to pay this) and no ebay business or anyone for that matter should turn this down; if they do don't bid. The benifit to escrow is theres no way you'll get ripped off. You give the money to the escrow, they verify it, and tell the seller to ship your laptop. You exam it for a few days, stress test it yourself, and then tell the escrow to go ahead and deliver the funds.

Even if you don't plan on using escrow, still ask if they accept it. Find out their return policy, in case it's DOA (dead on arival), and you'll even want to call IBM to make sure it's still under warenty and is not stolen property.

[Vindicated]

Oh it's local, even better. turn it on, run Prime95 and everest home edition. Prime will verify it's not junk, everest will show you all the details so you know exactly what your getting - in case they switched the box or it's a white box with no details.